Abstract
Introduction: Depression risk has been significantly associated with sociodemographic aspects such as education levels and self-rated health. The aim was to investigate the relationship of socio-demographic characteristics particularly level of education, and self-rated health on depressive symptoms among Malaysian adults. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study among Malaysians who aged 16 to 52 years old. Respondents were recruited via social media, using convenience sampling. Sociodemographic questions include education levels and self-rated health among other questions. Depressive symptoms were measured using Beck Depression Inventory-II, Malay version. The data were analysed using Chi- Square Test. Two-Way of ANOVA was utilized to determine the association of education levels and self-rated health on depressive symptoms. Results: Chi-Square indicated that age, level of education, job categories and self-rated health had a significant relationship at p<0.05 with key variables used in this study, presence, and absence of depressive symptoms except for gender, race and marital status. Two-way of ANOVA results revealed a significant interaction between self-rated health, level of education and depressive symptoms (F = 2.711,df=5,p<0.05). Conclusion: Malaysian individuals with low education levels showed depressive symptoms and showed a significant association with low self-rated health, however some of them rated themselves as healthy. Therefore, the government needs to make health literacy a priority for everyone, particularly for those with low levels of education and individuals who perceived themselves as mentally healthy.
Highlights
Depression risk has been significantly associated with sociodemographic aspects such as education levels and self-rated health
Malaysia is a multi-ethnic country, but the majority of the respondents who had depressive symptoms were Malay and only 4 respondents were from the group of minorities
Based on the analysis results, our first hypothesis in this cross-sectional study is partially accepted, we found that age, level of education, job categories and self-rated health were significantly associated with the key variables of presence of depressive symptoms and absence of depressive symptoms which were similar to previous study [5,39] except race, gender and marital status
Summary
Depression risk has been significantly associated with sociodemographic aspects such as education levels and self-rated health. The aim was to investigate the relationship of sociodemographic characteristics level of education, and self-rated health on depressive symptoms among Malaysian adults. Results: Chi-Square indicated that age, level of education, job categories and self-rated health had a significant relationship at p
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